I love it!

I just wanted to give a heads up to everyone about a good friend of mine over in Croatia. Don't worry ladies he's happily married. Tim, its like looking good is your job.

I once grew a handlebar mustache...my wife wasn't to fond of it. In fact everytime she looked at me she squinted a little as if she couldn't quite figure out what she was looking at.

Heading out for Lake Tahoe!

We keep getting asked where the Lake Tahoe summer project is...well lucky for you I found some pictures of it. It's called Tallac Village. This is where all the students live. ...Rustic.

Day after tomorrow we head out to Lake Tahoe. We have to be there by 4pm on Saturday. Every summer we wrestle with how to pack for six weeks. You'd think we would have learned by now.

"Do we bring our toaster or not? What about our clothes, how cold will it be? Should I bring my lucky blanket or not?" ....important decisions, not to be taken lightly.

Movie Day

Because the weather has been a little crummy in Bozeman the last couple days, we decided to head to the movie theater today. Mission Impossible III was our choice...although I think Jody deep down wanted to see Over the Hedge. As we waited for it to start I had thought's about downloading the mission impossible ringtone for my phone and how I could play it in the middle of the movie and freak all the other movie goers out.

Actually what was more exciting was they showed the trailor to the movie Nacho Libre...the highly anticipated (in my mind) Jack Black movie coming out in early June. Jack Black plays a orphanage cook (his friend call him Nacho) turned aspiring Mexican wrestler, i.e. Lucadore, who has to make it big to help provide for his orphanage. Teenage humor always makes me laugh, although please don't regard this blog post as an endorsement of the movie or any other silly/witty banter that might otherwise make 16-27 year old males laugh.

"The children need your help Nacho!"

In other news my wife ran over a gopher the other day.

Mishaps happen

Everyone else wussed out because of bad weather reports...not me and Steve! Oh no, not us...we're men! We can handle anything! We're tough!

On Friday we headed south to Cliff lake with a canoe strapped to the top of the Subaru. A beautiful spot on the Hidden lakes chain.

The day was rainy (and slightly windy) yet beautiful in the wild Montana way. The lake was unbelievable...it looked like a glacial lake somewhere up in British Columbia. The fishing was slow and kind of funny while trying to multi-task and paddle a canoe. The day came to a close and after hanging around the campfire for a while we went to sleep.

We awoke to snow! Yep that's right a little Memorial Day weekend present apparently. We figured canoeing while it's snowing, although interesting and possibly memorable, might be a little cold. So, we packed up our stuff...that's when things got interesting.

After loading all our stuff up all we had to do is get the canoe and tie it on top...

S: (generously) "I'll just warm up the car"

Seven seconds later as I'm headed down to get the canoe I hear the car door shut...

S: (horrified) Oh noooooooo!!!!!...I think I just locked the keys in the car!

M: (Incredulous) Nuh-uhhhh!???

We just kind of stood there for a moment, stoicly perhaps. The only sound being the windshield wipers wiping a a way the flakes that were falling

Thus began our problem solving moment of the morning...how to get into your car when all you have is a canoe, a 5-gallon bucket and some tie-down straps....and you're 30 miles from the nearest town AND it's snowing on May 27th!.

Long story short...no broken window, cold fingers, a gracious campground neighbor, a borrowed truck, a long drive and our wives graciously rescued us by meeting us with spare keys and money.

Four hours later I'm at home reading a book and falling asleep on my couch...good times.

Bozeman evenings

You might've noticed that my posts are far and few between these days. It's because I live here...

I've been taking advantage of the unbelievable weather by trying to spend as much time outdoors as possible. Weather it riding my bike way up in the mountains, fishing on the river, reading on my front porch or bbq'ing on my backporch.

Which brings me to my other favorite subject...food. Specifically meat. Nothing beats a warm Bozeman evening with a beautiful sunset over the mountains partnered with grilled ribs, steaks, or even just a burger.

a story from my wife

After speaking at 'XYZ', (Extra Years of Zest....not Examine Your Zipper) an elderly group at First Baptist in Prineville, Jody was washing up in the ladies room when she was approached by sweet yet visibly excited elderly lady.

Elderly Lady: "I wish we could clone you and send you everywhere!"

Matt's editorial: Ummmm....does this lady know something about cloning that I don't know. Can you imagine hundreds of Jody's running around the planet.

Home again!

Sorry about the hiatus.

We're home after two weeks of traveling....Spokane, Pullman, Prineville, Spokane and back. We had 13 appointments regarding our ministry along with one open house that 30 people come to. I went catfish fishing and got sunburnt. We went to a beautifull wedding in Pullman. We had a great early Mothers day with my Mom and a great Mothers day celebration with my Mother-in-law. We cleaned out over 1800 lbs. of trash out of my Moms basement and took it to the dump. We went to REI four different times. We had frozen yogurt at our favorite place in Spokane. We drove roughly 1600 miles.

Good times.

The booming town of Prineville

Imagine our shock yesterday as we drove up the main drag of Prineville, OR and much to our surprise found a Starbucks! Apparently over the last 2 years Prineville has become a hip little town overrun by Californians.

On the flip side of things today I saw a dog riding on top of the cab of a pickup truck...the country culture still lives on here.

Spo-compton, Spo-vegas, Spo-meth-angeles, Spokane!

We stayed up way too late last night visiting with our dear friends Steve and Ashley, thus I almost fell asleep on I-90 as we drove to Spokane today.

As we rolled into Spokane I was reintroduced to the east-side (of Washington state) culture by way of oversized mufflers on honda civics and every other car having brain rattling base thumping...which I'm certain threw the rythym of my heart off today.

But what the heck, why fight it?! Today I'm going to embrace my Spo-compton roots! Sup dog? That's wack! Where my homies at?!

Peace

Staff meetings

Scene: End of the year staff meeting after lunch on Wednesday...us all sitting around on couches.

B: (contemplatively) "What do you think about listening to rock music from your past? My son J came home from school singing an AC/DC song the other day and I asked him 'which one?' and after he told me I said, 'oh I love that one.' ....C said I wasn't being much help."

S: (grinning)"B do you remember that time we where playing that game in your basement and you kept thinking up all the white animal bands...Whitelion, Whitesnake?...you were so good at that."

Snakes

My staff team didn't believe us when we told them about this story. This is the local video rental shop where we rent videos!

The Madison River Mother Day Caddis Hatch

This evening I went fishing... it was one of those few hours on the river that will linger in my memory for a while.

After a couple hours of wind gusts, that I'm sure measured on the hurricane scale as a category 3 or 4, a calmness broke through and the caddis fly's began to swarm everywhere including down the collar of my shirt, in my ears and at times up my nose. The sun sank behind mountains of the canyon. The fish began to rise.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw a fish rise and swallow a bug...and then another...and then another.

For the nest 30-40 minutes it was pure bliss. Perfect conditions, perfect hole of water, perfect drift and perfect fish including a big ol' brown trout. Yippee!

The night was capped off as I drove home, by a beautiful sunset over the mighty Tobacco Root Mountains in my rear view mirror. Sometimes I can't help but just stand quietly and be in awe of God's creation.